


What Big Teeth

by JazzRaft



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood and Injury, Gen, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-06
Updated: 2018-10-08
Packaged: 2018-11-28 08:36:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11414199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JazzRaft/pseuds/JazzRaft
Summary: He thought they'd been prepared for this. But nothing could prepare them for the sudden shift in yellow eyes and the rabid howls that followed.





	1. what big teeth

**Author's Note:**

> written for an anonymous request based on [this art and comment](http://jazzraft.tumblr.com/post/161058850627/lhugbereth-brilcrist-tragic-ignoct-art-coz-im)

“I’m fine, Noct. Always figured this could happen eventually, didn’t we?”

_No,_ Noctis wanted to scream at him. The whole point of preparing for eventualities was to know how to _avoid_ them should they ever threaten to occur. They were supposed to know how to _prevent_ _this_ before they ever had to deal with the consequences of it. They were supposed to be ready.

He wasn’t supposed to be carrying Ignis’s weight like a cement block through the skeleton structures of blown-out farmhouses dotting the Lucian countryside. He wasn’t supposed to feel the wet heat that wasn’t his own soaking into his side. He was supposed to have stopped this.

A jumble of noises collapsed off of Ignis’s tongue that Noctis interpreted as, “Stop here, this will do.”

It was an ancient, ramshackle barn with its door hanging onto the frame by one corner. Noctis dragged them through the narrow triangle that the collapsed entrance made. It was hot inside, the ground strewn with crumbled stone and moldy planks of wood. Squares of broken stalls were scattered and splintered along the sides. Shredded chocobo tack and dented garula feeders were strewn beneath the debris. Noctis didn’t let his mind roil with thoughts of burning animals, just hoped that the farmers that had owned the place could set them loose before the Niflheim shells hit the ground.

It was a short drop to the dirty floor, but it felt like a plummet from the top of the Citadel. Noctis tried to maneuver Ignis as gently as possible, but every movement had his friend gritting his teeth and shaking his head when Noctis stopped and insisting on separating himself from the prince’s side to fold onto the floor with an awful hiss.

He squeezed his eyes shut until the pain settled and Noctis felt his whole face cave. He pressed the back of his hand to his mouth to keep himself from crying or screaming or both, took a silent breath and composed himself before Ignis squinted back up at him. Noctis frantically patted at every pocket on his person, refusing to concede the fact that he had nothing which could help them.

“The rest are in the car,” Ignis reminded him, voice like broken glass in Noct’s own chest.

Noctis turned back to the broken door, desperation feeding the madness which assailed him with the idea that it was safe to go back. Before the wraith of a thought could carry his feet to the door, a sharp, sopping cough snapped him down to his knees beside Ignis. He winced against the sting in his left leg as he did, trying to school his expression into looking unaffected, but Ignis didn’t miss it. Not even drenched in blood and seeing double.

“You’re hurt.”

“It’s a fucking scraped knee, don’t worry about that.”

He couldn’t control the high, wavering note to his own voice, nor the halting movements of his own hand as he reached for the long slashes draping deep along Ignis’s shoulder. People always said that tragedy happened so fast, but watching Ignis take that blow had been slow motion. Placating arms out-reached, lips parted in a beseeching cry, and then _the claws._ Long and black and crueler than any daemon’s because he’d only just recognized them as fingers. Rough and bronzed and ruffling through his hair, patting him against the back, lazily flipping through dime-store novels, and curling around a can of Ebony to pass forward into the driver’s seat.

“You’ve never seen when it’s bad before,” Ignis remembered, words strained with how hard he tried to soothe Noctis over a truth he’d always known, but never seen.

Noctis gave a minute shake of his head. He’d seen the change take over Gladio various times, but only in alliance to their fights, never turned against them. He’d been warned since the day his friend had confessed the curse to him that he was as much a danger to him as he was to his enemies. But the Amicitia Clan had lived with wolves in their blood for generations. Guard dogs to the Kings of Lucis, right down to their genetics. Gladio had vowed to Noctis that he would never hurt him because of what he was. That he would always be safe, no matter how hungry his wolf became.

He’d kept his promise. Gladiolus hadn’t hurt _him._

“Do you think…” His voice felt thick, tongue heavy in his mouth. “Prompto…?”

Ignis took a deep breath in through his nose, eyes rolling as the effort shifted the torn flesh. “He’s quick and he’s clever… and I think he reminds Gladio a little of you. Maybe that will be enough to keep him safe.”

“Maybe” wasn’t a comforting word, but no word really was when he was faced with the product of lupine rage. He tried not to panic. He tried to breathe and stay calm and _think._ He wasn’t a survival expert – his throat closed up as he realized one of the two people who could help him had been the one to cause this – but he thought he knew enough of the basics. They had no potions, but they had material. Noctis took a breath to steady his ruined nerves and stripped off his jacket and nudged it into place over the worst of the bleeding.

“Don’t know if I’ll be able to clean the stains from that,” Ignis wheezed against the contact.

Noctis didn’t know if he was teasing to try and comfort him or himself or both of them. Or if he was just stating a matter of fact. Noctis swallowed the small rise of hope in his throat that Ignis was already thinking about future laundry loads and tried to focus enough on his task that his hands stopped shaking.

Maybe it was a nightmare. Maybe it was all too horrible to be real. Maybe it was just the stress of everything, imploding inside of his head and creating the only thing worse than everything else he had encountered to torment him.

But the blood was too hot, seeping between his fingers from beneath the thin leather. The tremors of Ignis’s breath beneath his palms shook too hard across his skin. The hollowed-out pump of his own heart, beating the phantoms of lost, yellow eyes into his skull, was too loud in his ears. Everything was too _much_ to be a dream, the sequence of events too clear, the details too vivid to be mired in the fog of his dreams.

As he denied his dreams, Ignis started to accept them. His eyelids fell to half-mast. The sharp, sea-blue of his eyes misting like the last dregs of a passing storm, going quiet and still in the after-math of churning tides.

“Hey, no, no, cat-naps are my thing,” Noctis said, trying to follow Ignis’s lead in chiding him into a laugh. “Come on, that’s a bad idea and you know it. Stay with me, Specs.”

He got a distant hum in response. When Noctis dragged his eyes away from stemming the bleeding, Ignis’s eyes were closed, and with them, the gate to Noct’s calm.

“No no no, Iggy? No, come on, stay awake. Stay with me, please? _Ignis_.”

The jacket slipped to the floor as his hands cupped around his face, batted at his jaw, and shook the shoulder that wasn’t shredded. The thin string of his control snapped and panic rose hot and hoarse in his throat. A manic sounds ripped past his throat, something akin to laughter, but far more insane. He shook and plead with Ignis and failed to rouse him. Failed to keep tears from scalding down his face. Failed to save him, or Prompto, or even Gladio from himself. Failed to do anything but run and hide when he should have stood and fought.

“Stay awake,” he sobbed, his efforts weakening. “Stay alive.”

He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know where to go. He didn’t know _who_ to turn to. Prompto was lost. Gladio was _gone_ to someplace he wasn’t sure he could reach.

The silence was terrifying. The grumble of night-time monsters started to awaken far off in the hills. He was terrified the most that Gladio might be one of them now.

Noctis collapsed around Ignis, winding his arms around him and curling in deep, murmuring promises to the both of them to keep himself sane while Ignis slept.

“It’s fine. We’re fine. _You’re_ fine. I’ll make sure you’re fine. We’re all going to be fine. Just… make it through one night. One bad night, and it’ll be fine.”

A voice that sounded like Ignis rationalized his options as the night fell upon them. Their shelter was tucked out of the way, steeped in old scents of manure and rain-soaked wood and dirt. The daemons might not catch their scent. And if they did, he could handle them. He had his swords a couple magic flasks. If he needed to, he could keep them both safe.

Ignis was still breathing. Noctis could feel his chest fluttering against his own. He counted each inhale over the frantic beat of his own heart. Ignis was cold, but Noct was warm, fear and adrenaline burning through him. A logical voice in his head that sounded less like Ignis told him that body heat wasn’t an aid for blood loss, but the lie made him feel less useless.

He kept his eyes on the narrow opening in the barn door, watching the sunlight fade and the moonlight rise from the crook of Ignis’s neck. The joints of his fingers ached with how tightly they dug into Ignis’s stained shirt, digging for signs of life and vacantly hoping Ignis might feel it and come back to him.

Noctis breathed, and waited – for the panic to pass and for the sun to rise.

Just as the tears were drying and his chest stopped screaming enough for him to think about how to deal with all the blood, a shadow passed over the narrow strip of moonlight. And he felt as cold and still as the man limp in his arms.

There was a wolf at the door.


	2. better to smell with

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The wolf-blood came from his mother. The anger? The lack of control? That was all him.

There were older legends of Lucis than the Cosmogony, now little more than folklore and fairytales underneath the Astrals’ shadows – and the plague they wrought with them.

For the longest time, Gladio believed those stories to be just that: stories. Tall tales his father told him to help him fight the bad dreams at night. Fables for Iris to chase away the shadows her nightlight couldn’t reach after bedtime. Stories about a great wolf with a blue mane, and a howl so fearsome that daemons cowered in their pits of Scourge when the moon was full.

He’d nearly forgotten it by the time the changes started. Just like all of Eos, it seemed, he’d subscribed to the Cosmogony and accepted it as gospel, as the only history he would ever need to know.

The wolf-blood came from his mother. The sting of it within his veins, growing sharper and hotter every day of his adolescence, burned open a secret heritage, long forgotten beneath the rubble of ancient calamity. During a bygone era, older than forsaken Solheim, before weapons were forged by the old machines, they were crafted by blood and bone.

Warriors were made wolves. The most skilled hunters were blessed with the blood of the beast, a boon bestowed by an ancient deity, long before kings had claimed the wilds for their cities, and cultivated the strong for their soldiers. In a time before war, when the only necessity was that of survival, when their only governance was by each other, their only idea of holiness was the stars above their heads, men were made one with their world.

Now, a millennium later, it felt less like a blessing and more like a curse. The tales that used to enchant him as a child, used to give him strength against the daemons in his dreams, had become his nightmares when his eyes were open.

He’d tried not to fear it. He’d tried to embrace his mother’s lineage as much as he did his father’s. He tried to see it as the blessing his father promised it was on his wife’s behalf, when she couldn’t be there to teach her children herself.

He’d tried to feel the pain in his bones like the ache in his muscles after a long workout, tried to think of it as growth, strength, as a sign of improvement. He tried to think of it as a tool he could use to fulfill his duty as the King’s Shield, as another weapon of his birthright for him to hone in the Crown’s defense.

None of his father’s stories, none of history’s warnings, could have prepared him for how much it would _hurt._

He had been shaping himself to be strong enough to handle anything that came between him and his charge. He’d honed his senses to be as sharp as any sword glinting from the dark, molded himself to be as hard as his own shield when he called it to come between any bullet meant for his prince, schooled himself in medicine to mend Noct’s broken body, taught himself poisons should he ever need to have a taste for it before his prince sat down to eat.

He’d prepared for wartime. He’d prepared for sacrifices, like so many of his ancestors had given before him… On his father’s side.

He’d never truly known his mother until he felt her blood ignite in him. And he feared her as much as he admired her for how hard it was to control.

He’d had so much still to learn when he left Insomnia. He’d forced himself to be brave, convinced himself that he could handle the changes when they came, that he had enough control over them not to be a liability. He wouldn’t be left behind. He couldn’t be. He was the future king’s Shield, and this departure from the Crown City was his rite of passage.

Noctis needed him.

Noctis was afraid of him.

He could smell it now, in the black night of Leide, permeating the plains beneath his paws.

He’d known, of course. They’d all known. He couldn’t keep it a secret from the man he would serve for the rest of his life. And he couldn’t keep anything from Ignis, not even if he tried – the man was bred for uncovering the truth. Prompto had been the last to know because he was the last Gladio had met, but he took it all in stride, just as awkwardly easy as accepting that Noct could “call ghost swords from a magical pocket dimension, this isn’t the weirdest shit I’ve heard about you guys, man.”

They’d all known who he was… but not even Gladio knew just _what_ he was until the midnight gleam of the moon on MT armor had shown him his reflection. The taste of metal on his tongue, the tear of it beneath his teeth, that awful, writhing, rotting scent of scourge filling his mouth… it had transformed him beyond what he thought he understood.

He shouldn’t have changed. He should have been able to handle it as he was, with his sword and shield. But he’d heard Noct screaming, seen that electric claw sparking through his shoulder, the cable like a fishing line hooking through his magic and sapping the sacred tether between the four of them. He’d never prepared for that. In all his research before setting out, he hadn’t heard, in all his simulations, how awful that scream would be in his head, how _wrong_ that shock would feel, coursing between them.

He hadn’t prepared for how angry it would make him, watching Noctis fall and crawl through the dust, trying to find a place to hide and breathe, just for long enough to comprehend what had happened and recharge that stolen pool of magic he never thought could be violated.

Gladio had let his anger get the better of him, something he’d tried so hard to temper in his training. His one crutch when it came to battle, the one weapon he could never quite tame to fit into his hand like the hilt of his sword.

And now it had cost him.

He couldn’t pull back the beast once the MTs had dissipated in their pools of writhing scourge stains. The open fields, the unhindered night, the brightness of the moon, the taste of victory in his jaws was all too overwhelming. He’d never been out in the open like this when it happened. He’d always been contained by the narrow alleys and towering walls of Insomnia. There had always been barriers to keep him from losing sight of who he really was.

But greater Lucis was so much wider than Insomnia, so expansive, so _free._

He hadn’t meant to hurt Iggy. He wasn’t sure why it had happened. He didn’t think it _could_ happen. He supposed this was the price he paid for underestimating the things he didn’t fully understand. This was what he deserved for arrogantly thinking he was ready for this journey, that he was ready to honor his father’s name, and serve the Crown in his footsteps.

He couldn’t come down from the height of the fight. He’d seen Iggy there, with his hands raised, but his daggers yet to be called back into the armiger. Did he think he was threatening him? Did he think the fight wasn’t over just yet?

He didn’t want to think about the screams. He didn’t want to remember what soft flesh had felt like beneath his claws in comparison to the hard armor of the MTs. He didn’t want to know that twisted feeling in his gut when he’d seen the horror on Noct’s face through the redness in his own eyes.

They’d all scattered after that, leaving him alone in the dark. That had made him angry, he remembered. Angry to be abandoned by the people he’d trusted.

But once he was alone, once he could _think_ , once he’d run through Leide and burned off whatever poisonous edge had overtaken him after the fight, he couldn’t blame them. He could think clearer, he could realize what he’d done.

And he hated himself for it.

He needed to fix it.

He needed to find Noctis. He needed to make sure Ignis was okay. He needed to… he gulped down the thought that he could have killed him. He wouldn’t let himself accept it as a possibility, no matter how much blood he could smell on the earth.

Noct’s eyes were nearly red when he found them, twin pinpricks of half-crimson light in the shadows of the barn. His sword was in his hand, his boots sinking into the dust and hay strewn about his feet. Fear lifted off his skin like a heatwave, rippling along Gladio’s senses, heady and pungent in the dankness of the abandoned barn.

The russet taste of blood soured beneath it. He could see everything in the dark, and he wished that he couldn’t. Because he couldn’t delude himself about the damage he’d done when he saw how bad Ignis was, lumped against the ground behind Noctis.

It hurt. Worse than the fire in his blood ever had, seeing Noctis look at him like that, angry and scared and unsure, with drying tear-tracks on his cheeks. The scent of Iggy’s blood stung like a thousand wasps beneath his skin.

He needed to go back. He needed to find his voice again, remember how to turn his claws into hands to mend instead of tear. _He could fix this_ , a high, desperate voice in his head wailed, manifesting as a pitiful whimper in the darkness.

The sound made Noctis flinch, his resolve wavering on the grip of his blade. Years of friendship, of brotherhood, of cajoling and gentle bullying, and acceptance based on teasing and laughter in the training rooms, ripped at his chest. But the beast that had hurt his closest friend, that had nearly torn apart the bonds that were so precious to him in one swipe of its claws…

The flashbang bullet that blinded him from behind didn’t hurt nearly as bad as that. Nor did the blast of a magic orb from the barn doors, needling his eyes with the spell for sleep.

Maybe his dreams would be sweeter when he closed his eyes, rather than the nightmare he suffered when they were open.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had meant to continue this waaaay sooner after posting it than I am now, but life finds a way as Jeff Goldblum would say. I don't know if anyone remembers this or is still interested in it, but in my never-ending quest to finish my WIPs this year, I'm finishing this next. It won't be a very long continuation, but it will definitely have resolution!


	3. big bad wolf

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The decision comes down to Noctis. Does he keep his most faithful companion by his side, or put him down like a rabid dog?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I probably should have split this chapter into two, but I figured I've put you poor souls still reading through enough of a wait to drag out a second update. So, you get all 3,000+ words in one finale! Enjoy!

Why did it always have to come to this?

Why did it always have to be down to _him_ to decide?

Why was he always forced to be the King before being a friend?

Of course, the royal archives had thousands of years’ worth of detailed historical analyses, citations, and translations chronicling all of the answers to that very question. _Of course_ he remembered the elaborate murals haunting the walls of the Citadel, quite literally drawing it all out for him like a kindergarten teacher practicing word association with pictures to pair up with each and every eminent noun.

The word “Ring” beside a portrait of sunrise over a gray, empty bay.

The word “Sword” next to a painting of a tomb, the chiseled face of a lost king replicated in oil on canvas – because a dead stone edifice didn’t leave enough of an impression on kids these days.

The word “King” over a picture of a brooding stranger in a chair, a dead dog under a broken shield at the foot of his high seat.

Daybreak did not bring with it the same relief from the terrors that stalked their party from the edges of the havens. A different kind of daemon slipped between the runes, gnawing at Noct’s thoughts as the black sky paled and blinded the starlight from guiding him through the night. His chest still ached against the beating of his heart, breaths still short as they tried to catch up with the panic that had yet to cool down his feverish pulse.

Prompto pressed a bottle of water into his hands, the cold plastic on his skin giving him goosebumps. Noctis shuddered as if Shiva’s breath had tsk’ed against the back of his neck, so hot was he with the worry and the remorse and the impatient rush of time, pushing him to act on what had happened.

“Drink some water, buddy,” Prompto urged, sitting down next to him. “You know Iggy’d want us to stay hydrated.”

His voice lifted on an echo of laughter, trying to coax a little levity from the silence. Usually, opening his mouth to match the teasing came reflexively to Noctis. But today, he was too worried about Ignis to hear him talked about in the past tense, even though he knew Prompto didn’t mean it like that. His mouth was dry and his lips were shaky, and it was just too soon to try and laugh it all away. He took a drink of water instead – it was easier to let Prompto know he was listening that way.

It really wasn’t as bad as they thought when they got Ignis back to camp.

It was still _bad_ , of course. Nothing about their situation could be considered _good_ , not by any means… but it was _slightly_ less bad than the initial shock and chaos and general awfulness of the whole evening had warped things into seeming.

Gods… it all happened in _one_ night.

How different everything looked in the daylight.

It had been a long, _long_ night. Taking charge had taken it out of him, but between his and Prompto’s lessons in royal magic-crafting and Crownsguard first aid, they managed to siphon off of each other’s knowledge and bravado enough to patch Ignis up and keep him alive. Where one was inexperienced, the other filled in the gaps; where one’s hands shook pouring magic into a flask, the other held steady over the wounds with bandages and antiseptic.

The blood had been the worst part. Under the flood of light from the campfire, it had brought to mind the flame-bathed puddles and leaden weight on his back from the terror of his childhood. He’d seized up at the sight of it, at the crackling vision of blood and gasoline superimposed over Ignis, unconscious and clammy-cold against the rocks. But he only hesitated for a moment before resolving that he wasn’t going to let what happened to all those people, who died to protect him, happen to Ignis now.

He wasn’t a frightened little kid anymore, stupid and small and shrinking under the shadow of danger until his father came to rescue him. The Crownsguard and Kingsglaive had not let their future king leave the Crown City unprepared for survival in war-torn Lucis. He’d been trained in the use of practical magic and drilled in emergency combative injuries for over a decade. He would never be hurt like he was hurt by the Marilith again. And neither would his friends.

“I think we did alright,” Prompto said now, pacing himself through a long, controlled sigh. “Right?”

Noctis followed his lead, and took a deep breath himself, enough to steady his chattering nerves. It felt like he was surfacing from hours under deep water, the damp dawn air as sweet and cold as an elixir stealing all the poisonous thoughts from his veins.

“Right,” he said.

They’d been sheltered from the scourged beasts prowling in the night, dragging their ragged party back to their last campsite, warm from the fire and fed from the lukewarm cans of beans they’d cooked over the spit – neither of them had the energy, or the appetite, to try for something better.

Ignis was safe, sleeping, stitched up to the best their small medicinal supply could manage. They’d washed off the wounds, disinfected them, and poured as much of Noct’s frayed strength as he could into maximizing the effects of the potions they’d bought from their last pit stop.

They had food, they had water, they had their tents and their potions and each other, and Ignis was going to be _fine_. They’d done everything they were supposed to do to save him…

Nevertheless, Noctis never felt safe enough to sleep.

Not next to the shadow, breathing heavy and harsh in the tent beside them.

It had been a hard and harrowing march back to camp, trying to haul two bodies between them; one requiring as much delicacy as they could muster over the rocky terrain, the other… they just didn’t want to wake up. They couldn’t leave him out there though, abandoned to the darkness like any other daemon. It was _Gladio_ , their friend, their “no man left behind” – even if he didn’t look it anymore.

And now it was down to Noctis to decide what to do with him. As if it were that easy. As if he were just another sword in his armiger for him to discard when he wasn’t of any use to him anymore. As if he really were just a dog, an animal who bit the hand of his master; his loyalty – and therefore his life – forfeited from the King’s grace over a single mistake.

And that was all it was, wasn’t it? One mistake? One very big, very scary mistake on a long road where they would all no doubt make their own to match it?

Did that make Gladio a monster? Did that negate all those years they’d spent growing up together, training together, trusting each other through the good parts and the rough parts of this partnership they’d been forced into, but grew into making their own?

Did those claws tear away every pat on the back, every hand on his shoulder, every ruffling of his hair after a heated spar, a pointed barb, a breathless curse over the pleasant ache of muscles after a hard fight; after a sweaty, collapsed-to-the-dirt accomplishment; after the tiny arguments over where they should go to celebrate the strides they’d made?

Did those sharp teeth swallow up the smile he always sought out for guidance and kinship and the comfort absent of coddling on the days where he just wanted to be treated like he wasn’t breakable, like he was just a person; like he could trust Gladio to keep him as his comrade for a day instead of as his King?

Did the wrath in his eyes last night blind all the warmth Noctis recognized when his sister surprised him with lunch after training; when Prompto asked him to pose, and pouted over how his camera seemed to love Gladio more than it loved him; when Ignis sighed in dismay as he handed him his Cup Noodles, bemoaning his choice of cuisine and insisting he could do it better?

“Noct?”

Prompto’s hand around his wrist drew his attention to how hard his own hands were shaking. The water bottle was half-crushed beneath the clenching of his fingertips, liquid leaping under the tremors of his palms. Noctis blinked, and braced himself for the question he knew Prompto needed to ask. He tried so hard to be kind about it, his words soft with patience and a promise that he was here to help.

“What do you want to do?”

He wanted to go _home._ He wanted to give up and start over, rewind to the first steps he took from the Citadel, and make it all go right this time. He wanted to take one more day, one more week to truly understand how he was supposed to make this all work, make it all perfect, make it all go _right._

But he knew the rules. He knew there was no time to go back, no time to worry on where he went wrong. He needed to do something _now_ , not _then._ But he was terrified that his choice would cost him something he couldn’t afford to pay. He didn’t want to lose either of them, not Gladio or Iggy, but he didn’t know how he could keep them both like this – like they were always going to be balanced on the tip of those teeth.

“I don’t know, Prompto,” he said. “I really don’t.”

“I’ll make it easy for you.”

Noct’s first instinct upon hearing Gladio’s voice was to get up and grin that he was awake, and to tease over how dumb he was to make them worry like that. The words were right at the rim of his lips – “ _And you get on my case for sleeping too long!”_ – it was all ready to come so naturally from him…

But he felt the nervous energy from Prompto like a ripple of heat off asphalt. He saw the hollow, black-rimmed look of Gladio’s eyes, face turned down to his feet as he pulled himself from the tent. And while Noctis knew they would follow his lead through anything, they wouldn’t follow him in pretending like everything could be okay.

“I’m going back to Insomnia,” Gladio said, words like knots of copper wire, tight and sharp and leaving a metallic taste on the back of Noct’s tongue. “I’ll hitchhike to Cid’s, he’ll give me a car, and I’ll send a better Crownsguard to meet up with you.”

He looked across the haven at the other tent – Noctis only then realized how far away from Gladio they’d put Ignis; he hadn’t meant for it to look like that. Gladio’s eyes simmered like hot oil in a pan, needle-point bubbles of grief snapping at the edges before boiling over the clench of his fists.

“I’ll be gone before he gets up.”

He was moving before Noctis could catch up with what he was doing, what he’d been saying, what Gladio had already decided _for_ him while Noct was too slow and sentimental to decide instead. He always did that. He was always falling behind, over-encumbered by the weight of his own heart and unable to catch up before someone decided to break it – to speed him along over the broken shards left in his way. He only ever knew what he wanted when it was taken from him, before he could even have it.

Gladio moved ahead when Noctis couldn’t, took the steps he stumbled over, showed him the way a _king_ was supposed to go… But Noctis didn’t want to go this way. He didn’t care if this was what the Prince _should_ choose; he _knew_ , in his heavy, mixed-up heart, that this wasn’t _right._

Gladio marched around the camp on quick, staccato steps, snatching up the few scattered belongings that were his and taking none of the supplies they’d all sworn by to stay alive – he even left behind the little portable grill he’d brought, too. Prompto floated on the edges of his orbit, hands half-raised in hesitation, like he wasn’t sure if he was supposed to halt Gladio or help him. He looked to Noctis, pleading for something neither of them knew how to find.

Noctis could only race to reach the decision grinding up his guts before he missed it completely.

“Gladio. You don’t have to do this.”

It sounded so pitiful coming out of his mouth. He tried to sound like his father – hell, even like Gladio’s father if it would help convince him – but he still just sounded like himself, unsure and too quiet and so unlike the leader they wanted him to be.

“This is exactly what I have to do,” Gladio growled, the loud clang of something in his pack brooking no argument.

Noctis tried to, anyway. “It was a mistake, we won’t make it again…”

“A _mistake_?” Gladio dropped what he was doing, rising up over Noctis with a coil of heat tightening his glare. “Forgetting to fill the Regalia with gas is a _mistake_ , Noct. Nearly killing your friend for no reason is way more than that.”

Noctis knew that he was supposed to be scared. He knew that everything was supposed to be different now that Gladio had “betrayed” them. He knew that he wasn’t supposed to forgive him, that he wasn’t supposed to accept him, and that he wasn’t supposed to look at him as anything other than a monster ever again.

He knew that was what Gladio wanted him to think. The way he stood now, the way he talked, the way he insisted on intimidating him, trying to make him afraid, make him remember what he’d done… It just made Noctis as angry as him.

“I’m not an idiot,” he snapped. “We’re not little kids anymore, Gladio! I know this is messed up, I know how bad it is, but I also know it could have been worse. I know that we’re not going to fix it if you run away!”

“This _is_ fixing it!” Gladio roared at him, baring his teeth and playing the part he thought they should all believe – trying to make them afraid enough not to forgive him. “I’m not letting this happen again. I’m going back home, and I’m – “

“You’re what? Locking yourself in your room? Sitting on your ass and sulking about it? Sorry, big guy, but that’s _my_ prerogative,” Noctis laughed, humorlessly, playing a part of his own: the brat, the deadweight, the prince without motivation or direction and desperately in need of his Shield to kick him into gear.

He needed to antagonize Gladio’s loyalty, convince him that his duty outranked his self-loathing. But Gladio was stubborn, always had been, and while Noctis had learned a lot from him, he never learned to be quite stubborn enough to match him. “If you think you can order me to stay, _Your Highness_ , prepare to be disappointed.”

“I sincerely hope all this talk of insubordination isn’t happening on my behalf.”

All three of them flinched like they were being addressed by Ignis’s ghost, rising from the grave of his tent. Prompto was the quickest to help him from the canvas flaps, his snap-to need to help overriding the shock of seeing Ignis moving after so long asleep.

Ignis was pale, blinking out into the virgin sunlight. His hair fell in a tangled brown mop across his forehead, the deliberate neatness of his usual style completely undone by his near-comatose recovery. He was a little unsteady on his feet, enough to swallow his pride and lean on Prompto when a shoulder was offered for support. He wasn’t entirely okay, but he was alive, he was moving, talking, and, given that he was the core of this whole conversation, he had a lot to say.

“First off, my thanks.” He turned his face down to the bandages knit around his shoulder, pushing the side of his shirt open to better inspect them. He smiled at Prompto, then Noctis. “By the look of your faces, I imagine I must have given you quite the fright. Thank you for taking care of me while I was unalbe. Second…” His brow creased, scanning Noctis from head to foot, then Prompto, and then, finally, Gladio, who refused to look back at him, jaw packed shut and the cords in his arms raised taut beneath his skin. Ignis asked, “Are all of you alright?”

Noctis felt all of the fear and frustration rising from the knot in his stomach to cluster, in strained relief, as a lump in his throat. A broken little sound, akin to a laugh, unwound past his lips. Because wasn’t it so funny? That Ignis, who was the least “alright” out of them all, stood up from massive blood loss trauma and needed to make sure everyone else was alright first? That if anyone of them should be scared or upset or angry at what had happened, the victim chose instead to be concerned for himself last?

“Yeah,” Gladio said, voice like a pulled string ready to snap. “All okay.”

He picked up the bag he’d been packing. Ignis, with a clarity and conviction so unexpected of a recovering mauling victim, stopped him in his tracks.

“I hope you don’t still plan on traipsing back to Insomnia with your tail between your legs.”

Noctis bit his tongue, half horrified by the look on Gladio’s face as he glared back at Ignis, and half finding it hilarious. Prompto pressed his lips together, the same shade of uncertain over whether or not he was supposed to keep observing the seriousness of the situation. Ignis met Gladio’s stare, completely straight-faced. One brow lifted into the mess of his hair, the fine cut of his expression so recognizably Ignis, even apart from his immaculate style of Citadel severity.

“Forgive me. Poor choice of words?”

“This isn’t a _joke_ , Iggy,” Gladio snarled.

“Certainly not. I’d rather hoped my opinion in this matter would not be the subject of ridicule. And yet, you insist on running away. That, in itself, is rather ridiculous.”

“I’m not running away, I’m doing my job. I’m keeping you safe.”

Noctis didn’t miss the stutter of a glance sent his way. He caught it, and latched onto it, pulling himself into the conversation he’d been standing outside of. “We’re only going to get into more trouble if you leave,” he said, tentatively.

“It’s like Noct said. It was a mistake. An accident. This trip hasn’t gone quite as planned, has it? It’s all rather overwhelming – daemons in the night, magitek in the sky. We’re all out of our element here. Mistakes are bound to happen.”

“The hell is wrong with you three?” Gladio asked, incredulous, almost disgusted by this sudden rally of support for his staying, even after what he’d done. Even after how he’d shown them so plainly that he couldn’t be trusted. That he was more of a danger to them than anything else the Scourge could throw at them. “Ignis, I nearly _killed_ you.”

“And yet, I feel quite alive.”

A tenuous quiet settled over the camp, the embers of the fire fading with the glow of the runes as daylight vanished them from the stone. Everything really _did_ look different in the daylight. Nothing was left obscured by the dark, the heavy folds of nighttime lifted from his eyes, and Noctis could see everything so much clearer.

He stepped up to Gladio, used Iggy’s grace and Prompto’s support and all the memories of an adolescence growing up with Gladio to strengthen his decision. He was going to be the King one day. Gladio would need to learn to listen to him. Might as well start practicing now.

“You’re staying. We’re going to rest, restock, recover. And then we’re going to practice. We’ll train, just like always. All four of us. And we’ll be ready to help you. You just have to let us.”

Gladio looked at him like he didn’t quite recognize him. He looked between all three of them like that. Like he’d been switched into some alternate dimension where the terror of mortality didn’t destroy the foundations of a person’s trust. But Ignis was unmoved by his anger, more unhappy with his decision to leave than he was with being ground up like meat.

The circuit of Gladio’s stare ended on Prompto, who had been mostly silent throughout. He looked at him like he was waiting for him to be the dissenting voice in all of this. Like his silence had been reluctance to disagree with Noctis and Ignis. Like he really was afraid of him, didn’t trust him, would demand that he leave for all their safety.

But Prompto just did what he always did. He smiled, and he made the lightest words count after the heavy silence.

“Wouldn’t be the same without you, big guy.”

It wasn’t going to be _quite_ the same, even with him. They all knew that. None of them were denying the severity of the situation. None of them forgot the terror of that night. They didn’t understand it, maybe they never really would, but they were resolved to learn. They knew Gladio, they knew he was more than one face, one mistake, one awful night in the decades of good ones – late nights at the arcade, midnight walks to dinner, homework assignments and sparring sessions and microwavable meals for all-night movie marathons.

Gladio lowered his head, fists shaking at his sides like he wanted to reel back and punch some sense into all three of them.

“You guys are the worst.”

Noctis saw his teeth clenched down on all the emotion he couldn’t put into words. With enough time and patience and forgiveness, he’d see those teeth turn up into a smile again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Of course it was going to end that way. I'm a sap, a sucker for happy endings, we all know this about me, right? In the spirit of spooky season, I wanted to at least finish my one monster mash fic for Halloween lol Thank you everyone who read along and waited for more, I hope you've enjoyed my foray into werewolf!gladio!


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